Anyway. It's a nice PC, used for gaming and work and stuff. It's been a while since I last upgraded, my last PC has survived over 10 years of abuse, and was coping remarkably well. It was Core Q6600 overclocked from 2.4 to 3.0 (stable for years and years!) 4Gb of DDR2 and 1Gb ATI 4870. It used to smash Crysis at 1680 x 1050 back in the day! Anyway, digressing again. Build them well and expect them to last! I've been PC gaming since before the original Doom (on a 386!), and before that an avid Atari STE owner (and long before that my gaming first started off hand typing code from a book into an Oric 48k - I've seen some ****).

Where to start on the new build... the case! First thing I bought (bought bits and pieces over several months to avoid one big spend). I like a nice clean look, so many cases are soo ugly. This one looks amazing, but has a few minor drawbacks:

Build quality wasn't perfect on mine, and I'd had it sat in a box for over 6 months before starting the build, and didn't notice flaws until after pretty much finishing all the build and wiring. Could't be bothered RMA and starting again. There's a tiny chip off the corner of one glass pane, and there's a small warp in the top panel, and a minor blemish on the front panel.
It's also very heavy once full of gubbins.
Top ventilation seems a bit restricted.
280 rad on the front requires removing drive bays & separating plate. If the mounting holes were 1cm higher it would fit perfectly (can't be bothered re-drilling now it's built).
A minor redesign would allow top fans to fit in above top sliding fan tray, but that would also stop it sliding if used for a rad I suppose.

Decided to go Intel after waiting for Ryzen reviews. I wasn't going to particularly benefit from more cores at a slower speed, and didn't want any part compatibility issues. At time of purchase Intel platform felt much more mature. I do a fair bit of video re-compressing using X-Media, but this runs faster on the GPU than even on the Intel QSV, so extra cores not going to effect me too much yet.

Graphics card is a BEAST. what more can I say. It's cheaper than the ASUS equivalent and probably better. I'm very happy with it.

Very happy with my decision spread my buying out a bit. The price of my 32Gb RAM has gone up by ~£100 since. Also, if I'd bought a whole system when I got my case it would have probably been a 980ti and a 6700K, so giving it a little time has improved my spec too! The downside is that only buying one or two bits at a time and it's easy to go overboard. Did I really need the vastly expensive Prime Titanium power supply? Did I really need 32Gb RAM? Did I really need a fancy glass case and loads of LEDS? Probably not, but we're here now.

All the fans are Corsair Mag Lev, including push pull on the H115i AIO. On idle it runs quieter than a 2 disk NAS, and only gets to a very mild hum gaming. All 4 rad fans run from the Thermaltake PWM commander, which gets it's signal from the AIO. This way I'm not stressing the AIO fan controller. I know Noctua fans are probably better, but I just couldn't cope with the brown. Also, I didn't want custom water because of all the maintenance, It was just more hassle than I've got time for.

I've only recently done a very subtle mod of putting some washers in behind the mounts for the top panel, which lifts it slightly and increases the air gap. Also, getting 2 very long LED strips allowed extra loops under the top and behind the front panel. The glow and little light patterns are super cool. Colours are a throwback to 80's Neon / Outrun / Cocktail...

That's how I felt when I first started looking - them sexy builds are expensive, so much more so than my previous build 10 years ago! This is why I went for the buy it bit by bit approach. I'm not saying this build is for everyone, but it's surprising what can be achieved without going all out with one big spend. You just need to be careful that you're getting stuff that's going to be flexible and compatible.

Can't say the cable management was easy, it takes time to work out how to best configure stuff, and inevitably you end up needing different extensions / splitters etc. There's a proper vipers nest of wire tucked into the top compartment - but thankfully not in the way of anything and even my OCD stopped caring at that point.

The blue and purple scheme is something I'm really into, both my computers follow this exact trend (except the keyboard which needs upgrading) I don't know what it is but it's a really nice mellow feel with alittle bit of that shine

Thanks man. I think there are RGB ones now, but not sure I would have chosen differently anyway. It would mean more manual switches or another third party controller etc. Over complicated perhaps? The white LED's look awesome no matter what colour I set any of the rest to.

At the moment mostly Dirt Rally. Also spend a lot of time with Asetto Corsa. Project Cars looks really amazing, but I've not got into it so much - I got too used to the feel of driving Asetto, and with the harder driving sims there's a huge investment in getting everything setup just so.

I hear everyone bang on about how hard Dirt Rally is, how much of a hardcore sim it is, but compared to Asetto it's really easy to just pick up and play.

Witcher 3 looks amazing, but haven't had much time with it yet, sometimes there's so much depth it can be off-putting.

Also, loving a bit of Doom at the moment. If Crysis 3 was on steam I'd give it a look but I can't be bothered. I hated Crysis 2 after the first game was sooo profoundly amazing. Crysis 2 was probably the most disappointed I've ever been with a game.

Cheers. From what I've seen on this site, it's really useful to see why people make certain decisions and what difficulties people have. No point just writing "here's a PC wot I built" and expecting a pat on the back...

I know what I've built isn't exceptional - it's all fairly obvious parts and no massive modding efforts, but I wanted to build something well and feel like I've done it justice.

I agree with you entirely. A well written description of a build is invaluable when trying to make decisions for your own. I started getting into PC building last year and really enjoy the learning experience. I think my favorite part is doing research to make sure I'm not getting screwed by false advertising or specs that don't really matter. This website has been a great resource to ensure that.

I think you have a really clean build and it definitely has given me some ideas on what I would want to do for my next. And I also like how friendly this community is (especially when you compare it to the Dark Souls community haha)! So yeah, good stuff man.

It's an immense upgrade. I was pretty happy with my old system for a long time, as recently as Far Cry 3 it was still playing acceptably at near max settings, but more cpu bound stuff like Assetto Corsa was struggling at 10 to 15 FPS . Hoping this one does just as well.

That Dell monitor is amazingly nice. I know all the ASUS and Acer models get all the attention, but they're overpriced, IPS glow is a complete lottery, and I can't stand all the over the top 'gamer' stylings. Some look like they were drawn by me when I was 12!

Hiiiii!!!
Great frikin build. Great combo with fans. I am building my first PC right now, with the exact same case (black) and ML140 pro fans but I just noticed that they don't match with the connectors on the back of the case, the PWM Hub, which is 3-pin connectors, and ML140Pro fans have 4-pin headers. how did you connect your fans to the case? I would really appreciate your help. :)))))

Hi, I connected the rear and top fans directly from the MB (using a Y splitter for the top pair so they're always the same speed). The 4 fans on the cooler are connected to a thermaltake commander PWM controller (all 10 headers are 4 pin) , which gets its input control speed from the corsair AIO. The corsair H115i only has two fan connectors itself, and I'm now using only one of these to control 4 fans, with power supplied via the thermaltake controller. I removed the phanteks controller, but I believe you could still use it, 4 pin fans are backwards compatible with 3 pin headers, but I don't think you get the full range of 4 pin PWM speed control? I wanted 4 pin headers for all my fans, rightly or wrongly. Also the thermaltake one is substantially neater, and in a more convenient place for cable routes. Good luck with your build!

1 question though, do you think this fan setup could work with only the phanteks controller alone and without the thermaltake? I need push pull just like you and I have 7 fans in total (including the AIO fans) and the same MB

Only one way to find out, give it a go. There's nothing to loose as you already have the phanteks controller. If it doesn't work try something else. You can probably get away with using a pair of y splitter cables from the two corsair fan cables, and drive 4 fans directly from it. I liked the look of the thermaltake controller, and having lots of connections means I have the option to try every possible configuration, right up to having all the PC fans driven solely from the corsair speed. I've not tried that yet, but I'm slowly finding the Asus ez fan software a bit annoying...